And now leading the charge is none other thanWisconsin Gov. "Beam Me Up, Scotty" WalkerThe $2500 in grants Michael Baynes received this semester covered less than half of just his tuition at Arizona State U. He has already racked up $17K in student loans."Total student debt now surpasses $1 trillion and is growing by the day.
Wednesday the Congressional Progressive Caucus elected-- mostly reelected-- it's caucus officers. With no opposition, Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) were again voted caucus co-chairs and Barbara Lee (D-CA) was reelected whip. Freshman Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) was made a vice chair/liaison to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Matt Cartright was also named a vice chair/liaison for new members.
Mark Pocan was elected to Congress from Madison, Wisconsin when Tammy Baldwin went on to the U.S. Senate. He beat his Republican rival 265,422 (68%) to 124,683 (32%). Since being elected he's had the best lifetime ProgressivePunch crucial vote score of any Member of Congress, 98.68. With George Miller retiring, Pocan is generally viewed as organized labor's go-to guy in Congress.
Scott Walker family portraitTwo of the worst governors in America are extremist ideologues Scott Walker of Wisconsin and San Brownback of Kansas. Both will face the voters a week from tomorrow. Both are being opposed by moderate Democrats, rather than by the kinds of progressives Blue America endorses.
PPP polled minimum wage as an issue in half a dozen battleground states with heavily-contested state-wide races, Iowa, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky and Louisiana. Support for increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 was strong across the board, ranging from 61% in Illinois to 53% in Wisconsin. Opposition was strongest in Wisconsin, but still weak at just 39%.
Now that the Republican primary is over, Scott Brown is trying to present himself to New Hampshire voters as more moderate and more mainstream than his record shows he is— particularly on issues important to women voters (and to men who like and respect women). Brown has been lying, claiming he has always supported women having the ability to get contraception easily.
There aren't many-- if any-- Republicans who have been more demonized in those annoying DCCC emails begging for money from lo-info grassroots Dems, than Paul Ryan. Reading them, you'd think the DCCC is gearing up to fight-- if not already in the midst of hand-to-hand combat-- against the despised and much-vilified (rightfully despised and vilified) Ryan.
Blue-America endorsed candidate Kelly Westlund (WI-07) is running for the massive 72-county swing district seat in the northern, ventral an western part of Wisconsin. Sean Duffy, a sad Paul Ryan stooge, currently occupies the seat, although Obama won it 53-45% in 2008 and lost narrowly in 2012, 51-48%.
Last night John Amato and I went to the first of two rallies in L.A. this weekend meant to help turn out Democratic voters. The main speaker was Alan Grayson and he was out here supporting CA-33 progressive Democrat Ted Lieu. Without any doubt, the biggest reactions came when Grayson explained why he was one of the leaders of the fight against arming and training the so-called "moderate" Syrian terrorists-- the tragic McKeon Amendment that passed the House Wednesday, 273-156.
